The following is a short story that I began tinkering with while The Many Antlered Crown was in the hands of my beta readers. This is a first draft that isn’t even complete, but I thought it might be a fun read for those of you who are interested in such things.
Anarion was a poet of consummate skill and wide renown. Though he was welcome in the most opulent courts, he was ever drawn back to the open road. He often sang of the watchful loneliness of the road and of the mystery of its unwinding. He openly declared that there was nowhere a road could lead that he would not follow, and to many it seemed his boast was made true, for he had been to many places. Anarion vowed to tread every trail, not flinching from the unknown, but pushing the limits of human knowledge to the very ends of the earth.
There came a day when Anarion had come to the base of the furthest mountains he had ever heard in tale or song, and he thought his labors were complete and his boast fulfilled.
“Here is proof that the road does not lead ever onward, as some have said, but has its end. I have walked every road, and my vow is fulfilled.” Anarion said with satisfaction.
Then a voice answered Anarion, though he had supposed to be alone.
“No mortal has trodden the paths beyond the mountains, but they are paths all the same.” The voice came from a hamadryad, who leaned her naked torso from a tree at the road’s end. “The realm of men is small in the circles of the world, and there are a great many paths ahead of you if you dare to tread them. Some you may never walk a second time, and others may prohibit your return.”
“I am sworn to walk these paths, if they exist, no matter what dangers may lie ahead.”
“You are fair and brave, young poet, and if I were blessed with feet to walk, I would surely go with you as a guide. Only sing me a song that I might remember you, for you will never come here again if you once set foot beyond the mountains.”
Then Anarion sang a song of travel, that made the hamadryad’s roots ache with longing. The magic of the song rang deep in her wood until the twining roots came together to form legs, and they were fair and lithe. She emerged from the tree like a new leaf, soft and green on her hips. Her new toes wiggled in the dirt experimentally before she leapt on the road. The dryad danced down the dusty trail, while Anarion sang behind.
They climbed into the mountains until the forest drew back from the ice-bound peak, and still they continued. They trudged through fields of snow, over the grinding glaciers, and along precipices slick with ice, until they came at last to the tallest peak. Anarion thought then to cease, and return to the easy road, but the dryad strode on, off the peak and continuing up into the clouds that lay thick around. Then, seeing that the road had not yet met its end, Anarion followed.
The pair strode through the upper airs with a slight spring, like when trodding on a bed of pine straw. Then Anarion saw that the creatures he had fancied in the clouds were real indeed. Great turtles swam through the sky and plunged through the clouds, their colossal shells overgrown with hanging lichens. Then the skies grew dark and serpents of fire darted across the airs, striking at the shadows which grew in size and malice all around. A rumbling growl shook the sky so that Anarion greatly feared what manner of beast had been roused.
“Fear not, young poet!” The dryad cried above the din. “That is no wild beast that you hear, but is Eranthon, the mighty hound who will flush the rains from their hiding. He will drive them to the earth, and it would be good for us to follow, for his master comes behind. Woe to any he catches unawares!”
Then the growl of Eranthon seemed very close, and Anarion fancied he could hear the pounding thread of the great hound. Then a large flock of rain burst from the clouds and flew toward the earth, and the dryad leaped from the cloud top to follow. Anarion was afraid to go, but was far more afraid to see the visage of Eranthon, and the awesome hand of his master. Anarion stepped off the cloud and plummeted through all the lands of the air until he splashed into the ocean below. The dryad was floating nearby, so he clasped her hand and held tight, for the waves were roused and stampeding.
“Come, Anarion, wrap you arms around my waist! The serpents of fire have begun to strike at the waters, which is a sign there are dark things coming nigh the surface. I will bestride a wave and bear us away. For now, we share the purpose and direction of the fleeing waves.”
Anarion did as he was bidden, and soon the pair were racing before the storm, but the seas grew rougher so that the waves behind stood tall and terrible like titans of the waters. The little wave that Anarion and the dryad rode couldn’t outpace the fury that raged behind, where the waves dared to grasp at the very clouds. Monsters of the deep were illuminated in their tentacled horror as they wrestled with the lightning. Eranthon barked so loudly it shook the heavens, then the hand of his master dealt heavily with the waters, throwing them back from the heart of the storm. Wind and wave overwhelmed Anarion and the dryad, casting them into the riotous waters where they churned as in the belly of a great beast.
Not even the dryad’s natural buoyancy could help them regain the surface and at length they began to sink. They drifted down into darkness of the deep, a realm only recently vacated by the leviathans. The cold currents that wound there felt the faces of the newcomers like blind men, and with shaking fingers discovered that they were beautiful. The currents were deeply moved, and swept the pair to a place they might be preserved. Anarion and the dryad were set among the roots of the mountains, and among the tangled roots of stone there were hidden chambers of air.
“Why save us?” Anarion asked the currents once breath returned to him. “Your realm is cold and dark, and yet you have been merciful.”
“We have felt your faces, and have seen that they hold beauty and life. The depths hold much wealth in gold and pearls, the native treasures of the deep and the spoils of its conquests. The leviathans covet their cold treasures, though not a glimmer of their light may be glimpsed in the murky depths. Each monster lays atop a nest of gold, but each coin may as well be a grimy stone. We have once rescued a ruined ship’s figurehead, which seemed the most fair thing we had ever touched, but in you we find beauty wholly alien to our world. We could not let you become another prize in a monster’s hoard.”
“But what now are we to do, stranded at the roots of the mountains with nothing to guide us to the light? Here, surely, all paths have met their end and ours is shortly at hand.”
“You are creatures of the light, and a rumor of the light is in the beauty of your being. Follow the rumor to its truth and you will see the light again. The path winds ever onward, Anarion.”
Then the currents of the deep left them, and they were alone among the roots of the mountains. It seemed a long time that they sat in the darkness, but it was difficult to mark the passing of hours and days. The dryad didn’t know the way forward, for no breeze or songbird had brought her word of it, and her roots had never ventured so deep. They tried to decipher the advice of the currents, but could find no enlightenment. After a time, they gave up and lapsed into a melancholy silence. Then Anarion spoke in a voice that was distant and wistful.
“Even when the moon would be hidden, and clouds would cover the stars, it was not as dark as it is now. Even then, there would be some silver light that dropped like dew on the earth. You couldn’t tell where it came from, it was just—there. I wish I had looked more closely then.”
“I wish I could feel the sunlight cascading down through my leaves again. It was so warm and sweet in the springtime, when my leaves were fresh and green.”
“You could taste sunlight?”
“Of course.”
“I wish that I could taste a sunbeam.”
“Did you ever try?”
“No, I suppose I didn’t. I wish that I had tried. I did feel it lay beside me in the grass for an afternoon nap, and I watched it parade into the west in its regalia of fire. I might have heard it once, in the summer, when it was humming through a wheat field.”
Then Anarion was filled with such a longing for the light and he was stirred to song. The dryad knew the chorus, for she had sung it when she was only a seed, lost among the shadowy soil. She joined her voice with Anarion, and their words recalled the world of light that was now so far from them. They sang the harvest moon, the crescent, and the wheeling stars. They sang of sunlight crowning the mountains, twilight at the waterside, and the burning western sky. They sang of all the light they had known, and all they had lost, until the memory of it shone in their faces. Each was filled with radiance, when they looked on one another, their eyes gleamed with the clean light of sunrise.
The Sensiahd word of the day is “rhost”, meaning “to travel, to journey”. Example sentence: Nes ean rhost cws uscwrod. We’ll travel until dusk.